


Whoever she may be

by Mierke



Category: Finding Carter (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 15:14:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4268088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mierke/pseuds/Mierke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set somewhere around Something to Talk About (2.7). Taylor and Carter talk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whoever she may be

**Author's Note:**

> Initially begun for [](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Rain_Challenge/profile)Raine's Rain Challenge, then it spun out of control and made me miss the deadline.

Her world was spinning out of control. Taylor could feel it whirling in her head, the thoughts and feelings and doubts and insecurities that had been assaulting her from the moment she had found out the truth, and it didn't stop. She needed a way out of this, even though she had no idea what that way out would even look like.

She sneaked out of the house, the wind biting through her thin dressing gown and nightclothes. She shivered, but didn't stop. She hadn't gotten five steps far when the first raindrop touched her skin. Delighted, Taylor lifted her head up to meet the rain and set off in a run. 

She had no idea where she was going, but it didn't matter. Her bare feet slapped against the pavement, burning away the restlessness that had taken up residence underneath her skin. The rain soaked through her clothes, completely engulfing her in dripping wetness and chasing away the seemingly ever-present feeling of _otherness_ that had clung to her body. It felt like the cleansing that she had been longing for, and when she came across a puddle she jumped in it with a euphoric scream. 

Twirling round and round in the water, her arms stretched out, her face towards the sky, she realised that for the first time in who knows how long, for the first time in over thirteen years, she felt free. This moment, right here and right now, this was her. The girl who didn't care about who would see her, the girl who didn't care about the test tomorrow, the girl who didn't care or even want to know who her family was - this was her. Relief shot through her, and she started giggling, her mouth catching rain as she couldn't stop the hysterical laughter that bubbled up from somewhere underneath her toes. 

She fell down, unable to keep upright with the hysterical laughter that was breaking free. All around her lights came on in the houses and some people stepped outside, but she hardly noticed. The water of the puddle she had fallen in soaked the few fibres of her body that had still been dry, and she was shivering violently from the cold, but still she laughed. She laughed until the tears burned her eyes, she laughed until she couldn't anymore and then she just... gave up, in the middle of the street, in the middle of the puddle.

Her muscles were sore and weak, and her head pounded. She closed her eyes and gave up the fight with gravity that had so far kept her head above the water. There were no thoughts anymore, no painful memories or fantasies, as she lay down completely. With her ears underwater she felt protected from the outside world, and the drops of rain on her skin felt like the touch of a friend, the touch of someone who cared and wanted to be a part of who she was.

Whoever she may be.

* * *

Someone was poking at her shoulder. Taylor opened her eyes, and tried to identify the intruder. The rain was making it hard to see, but the voice was unmistakable.

"Tay? Tay?"

Taylor sighed and closed her eyes again.

"Go away, Carter."

She shivered as Carter lay down next to her, and laughed at herself as she realised she had to push down the urge to tell her sister that she shouldn't do that, that she'd get wet, that she'd get sick. She was so, so done with being the good girl.

"Tay, please. Look at me."

Her eyes stayed closed, even as Carter poked at her shoulder again. She didn't want to talk.

"You know," she said, more to keep Carter at bay than because she actually wanted to say something. "You had a perfectly fine first name. Lyndon is an extraordinary name and it means flexible, which totally suits you. Instead, that woman changed your name to _Carter_ , which really doesn't mean anything but driver of a cart."

"At least now we're both named after a profession," Carter replied and Taylor could hear the smile in her voice. She laughed, a soft giggle that escaped against her wishes. 

"Tell me about her," she said, infinitely glad that Carter wasn't trying to get her out of the water. She needed to be here right now, and it felt... nice to have her sister with her. 

"About Lori?" Carter replied, surprise evident in her voice. Taylor stiffened a bit, and had to fight against the urge to hide from the truth and claim she hadn't said anything.

"All I know," she said, getting the words out with difficulty, but needing to talk more than she thought possible even minutes ago. "All I know is that Lori took away my sister, my childhood, my birthdays and my _life_. I always had to be good enough, no, I always had to be _better_."

She opened her eyes, looking at the girl who should have been with her her entire life, who should have had parties with her, and fights, and sleepovers, and a secret language that twin sisters supposedly had. 

"I went through this phase in which I watched every _Parent Trap_ movie that was out there. Even though I knew we weren't identical twins, I dreamt of finding you in the weirdest places, of _recognising_ you somehow even though I had no idea what you looked like. When I was 12, I begged my parents to let me go to camp."

Carter took her hand, and only then did Taylor realise that she had started shivering.

"I cried for five days straight. The camp counsellors wanted to send me home, but mom and dad wouldn't hear of it. They didn't know why I had wanted to go; they just thought I was homesick, and staying would do me good."

She fell silent for a minute, feeling silly for the tears that had started to fall. 

"My entire life I felt so _lost_ without you," she said. "That is what Lori reduced me to. To a girl who could never be whole, could never really _know_ herself because a part of her was missing and would probably never come back."

Carter pulled her closer and Taylor lost herself in the hug, finding comfort in the relative warmth of her sister's body against her own.

"Let's get you home," Carter whispered into her ear. "Let's get you dry and warm. We'll drink a cup of cacao and hide under a mountain of blankets and I will tell you everything you want to know."

She let go of Taylor to be able to look her in the eye.

"Okay?"

Taylor nodded, shaking from exhaustion and cold alike as Carter pulled her up out of the water. Her drenched clothing hung heavy on her body, and on the way home the pavement felt harsh against the soles of her feet. She leaned heavily on Carter, who didn't seem to care as she half carried her sister home, determination etched all over her face.

When they entered the house, Carter helped Taylor up the stairs, and out of her wet clothes. A part of her rebelled against the accusation of weakness, but a bigger part of her revelled in the feeling that for once someone took care of _her_. 

As Carter went down to get the cacao she had promised, Taylor closed her eyes. She huddled underneath the blankets, trying to get warm, and gratefully took the steaming mug from her sister when she came back up. They sat side by side, their backs against the wall and the blankets pulled up as far as they would go. Taylor was still shivering, but she slowly felt the warmth creeping back in.

"If...", she started to say, but sipped her cacao when she realised she couldn't get the words out. Carter stayed silent beside her, waiting for her to find her way through the mess in her head, and she was infinitely grateful for the uncharacteristic patience. 

"If," she began again. "If she's my... biological mother, than she's a part of _me_. I need to know that I'm not half monster."

"It's been a long time since I've thought of the good stuff," Carter whispered beside her, and immediately Taylor felt bad for dragging her sister into her meltdown.

"It's okay," she hastily said. "I get it if you don't want to-"

"Tay!" Carter said forcefully, cutting off the babble that had started to pour out. Taylor stared into her mug and whispered an apology. 

"Tay," Carter said again, softer this time, and she put down her mug of cacao. "Tay, look at me."

Taylor lowered her hands - warmly wrapped around her mug - and forced herself to look into her sister's eyes. 

"I love you. And if I can do anything to help you, and I mean anything at all, than I will gladly do that. Okay?"

Inadvertently, Taylor shook her head, unable as of yet to take the comfort that her sister was offering. She brought the cacao back to her lips, the hot liquid burning her mouth as she took too big of a sip. She couldn't look at Carter; she couldn't let her see how much she needed this, how much she needed someone to be there for her. 

"I don't actually know who the big sister is here," Carter said. "But let me be her for once, okay?"

She huddled closer to Taylor, and Taylor could feel her sister shiver in a response to the cold that seeped in through her body. 

"Lori," Carter began, not awaiting another answer. "was... beautiful. She was this bright light in my life. We didn't have the strictest rules, and I'm sure Elizabeth would feel she failed in her duty as a mother, but she loved me. For every day of my life, I knew she loved me. And I loved her."

Taylor felt something inside her open up as she heard Carter's voice break. She had never really considered what it must have been like for Carter; it had always been so much easier to paint the kidnapper as just that, a kidnapper, an evil and cruel person who would take a child from their home and not even tell them who they really were. 

"I really missed that when I first came here. And I still... Elizabeth doesn't really tell us that, does she? I mean, I'm sure she does love us, but it's different when you don't hear it every day."

Carter grew silent for a minute, and just as Taylor was starting to feel bad again for wanting her to talk about it, she continued. 

"We used to laugh a lot together. We would go shopping and try on the ugliest stuff. Or we would sit down in a cafe and just talk for hours. Some nights we would watch a movie and then go eat frozen yoghurt for dinner. We would go to a park and pretend we were training for the Frisbee world championship or something. She truly was my best friend."

Taylor took another sip for courage, and asked: "Do you miss her?"

For a while Carter didn't reply, and Taylor pushed down the urge to look at her. Carter had given her space when she needed it; she could do the same for her. When the answer finally came, it was so quiet that Taylor could easily have pretended she didn't hear it.

"Every day."

Taylor didn't pretend though; she put down her cacao and pulled her sister into a hug, letting her cry out all the tears for the life she had lost. 

They stayed like that for a while, until exhaustion caught up with them and they slid further down, lying on their backs with their heads close to each other on the pillow. Taylor closed her eyes, but there were still so many questions in her head that even despite the exhaustion, she knew sleep wouldn't be coming.

"Carter?" she asked, her voice low just in case her sister was asleep.

"Yes, Tay?" the reply came, and Carter's voice sounded just as tired and awake as Taylor felt.

"Do you think I'm a bad person?"

"Are you kidding me?" Carter replied, the incredulity evident in her voice. She grabbed Taylor's hand as she continued: "You are the best person I know. You're loving, and kind, and you always put others before yourself. Why would you ever think you're a bad person?"

Taylor couldn't immediately find the words to explain, and she focussed on Carter's hand in hers, on the sounds of the house around her, on the feel of the bed against her back; anything to force her racing heart back down again and put into words what she had never before been able to say out loud.

"Sometimes I wonder why she didn't take me," she finally said, her words rushed to prevent herself from taking them all back in. "Why did she just took you? Was I not good enough? Was there something wrong with me that she wanted you but not me? If... If I'm her biological daughter too, and she just wanted _you_ , what does that say about me?"

Tears were streaming out of her eyes when she finished and she turned away from her sister, yanking her hand back and curling up in a ball, unable to face Carter after her outburst. But Carter wouldn't be deterred; she lay down closer to Taylor, her arm around her, wrapping her in a hug so tight that Taylor could hardly breathe. 

"I think...," she began. "I think leaving you with David and Elizabeth was her way of... of being kind. I think she felt entitled to the both of us, and that leaving one of us behind was a way of soothing her conscience. It doesn't say anything about you personally. I was just closer, easier to catch. If our positions had been reversed, it would have been you with Lori and me here. She didn’t want _me_ ; she just wanted one of us."

After a minute of silence, she continued: "It's okay to wonder. It doesn't make you a bad person that part of you wants the life that I led. In this case, the life of the kidnapped was definitely better than the life of the one who got left behind. You get to be angry, Tay. And you get to be jealous even. These emotions don't make you a bad person. They make you human. And I know you've spent all of your life trying to be perfect, trying to be good enough for two people, but you don't have to be. You get to be flawed just like everybody else."

"I'm not a bad person?" Taylor whispered, cursing the weakness in her voice but too tired to be strong. Carter just hugged her even tighter, this time actually cutting off Taylor's air and Taylor swatted at her arm, laughing softly when Carter let up again.

"You're the best person I know."

* * *

Taylor must have fallen asleep for a little while, because Carter's voice cut through a dream that consisted of contorted images of Lori everywhere as she had to find her way through some kind of labyrinth.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," Taylor replied sleepily, all too grateful that her sister had woken her up.

"Do you ever think it would be easier if I had just died?"

"Carter!"

All Taylor's drowsiness had vanished instantly and she turned around to face her sister, worry and indignation radiating off her in ways. "Don't say that!"

"I'm not suicidal or anything," Carter rushed to say. "I just wonder, sometimes. Maybe if I had died, you would all have had time to mourn. It feels like... like my kidnapping put everyone on hold, and now I'm back into your lives, you're trying to start back up again but the configuration is all wrong and the pieces don't fit."

Taylor wrapped her hand around Carter's and forced herself to think about what her sister had said before she jumped in with a reply. 

"I think," she finally said, still trying to calm her racing heart after Carter's question. "first of all, that you should never, _ever_ , think that we would have rather you died. And I think that... Well, you're right. The pieces don't fit. You left as a three year old, and for us you never changed, you never grew up. The contours of 16-year-old Carter don't exactly match those of the child that was taken."

She wiped a tear from Carter's cheek with her thumb, and continued: "But that's okay. Because the life we were living? It was not good. We were always _waiting_ , waiting on something to change, on something to make things better. We lived in this strange world where I could never live up to my absent twin, where Grant had to fight the absent sister he had never even met for every crumb of attention... You coming back, you being _alive_ , made it possible for us to change. We are moving around to make the pieces fit and now maybe Grant will finally be able to just be a _son_ , and mom will be able to look at me and see _me_."

She took a deep breath and said: "I'm glad you're not dead. I'm glad you came back into our lives and _didn't_ fit, because honestly, the life we were leading sucked. You gave us, all of us, the chance to really live."

Carter smiled at her, a brittle smile, the kind of smile that you paint on when you think you're supposed to smile but are not really feeling it; the kind of smile that Taylor knew all too well. 

"I can not say this often enough," she said, taking her sister's hands in her own and squeezing. "Our family was not complete without you. _I_ was not complete without you. Some day, I want to visit that carrousel and thank it for making me whole again."

"I never even knew I had a sister," Carter mumbled a while later, her words only just penetrating the sleepy fog that was dragging at Taylor. 

"Well, now you do," she said, her reply almost unintelligible because of the yawn that broke through, but she figured Carter would understand her anyway. 

"It's weird."

"Weird for me too," she replied. "Sometimes it felt as if you weren't really real."

Carter smiled, a real one this time, the kind that lit up her eyes and made Taylor feel as if she really _knew_ her sister, despite all the drama and the thirteen years apart.

"I'm real," she said. "I'm also really tired. Can I sleep here for tonight?"

Taylor laughed. "Why would you think I would kick you out of my bed now?"

Carter tried to shrug, but her muscles seemed too tired so she didn't really manage. Taylor got the point anyway.

"Close your eyes and go to sleep," she said, squeezing her sister's hand one more time before she herself huddled deeper under the blankets and finally gave in to her exhaustion. "Love you."

She almost didn't hear Carter's reply, and she probably wouldn't remember it in the morning; but some part of her heard and she fell asleep with a smile on her face.

"Love you more.”


End file.
